Phil Clapp was appointed CEO of the Cinema Exhibitors' Association in October 2007. Before joining the CEA, he had led on policy for the creative industries - including film, music, computer games, fashion and design - at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).Before joining the Culture Department, he had worked at the Cabinet Office advising the (then) Labour Government on social policy issues.

Phil joined the public sector in 1994 from a background in scientific research.

Entries by Phil Clapp

A few weeks back at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, Steve Moffatt - the man behind two of Britain's biggest TV hits in Sherlock and Dr Who - told an audience why in his opinion television was better than the movies.Given his pedigree, you might think that unremarkable. And on both...

In today's attention economy there is no substitute for physical interaction to bring a subject to life. You only need look at our world-beating museum culture as evidence of our addiction to learning through experience. Admissions have doubled in the last decade.

Keen followers of the cinema and film industry amongst you may know that the government is considering plans to change the way in which cinemas are licensed. While this might seem a trivial issue, anyone who cares about the cinema-going experience should take note.

Unannounced, and perhaps unnoticed by the vast majority of its customers, cinema across much of the world is undergoing a quiet revolution. 35mm film, which has been the mainstay of cinema projection for the last 80 years or so, has since the early 2000's been increasingly replaced by digital technology....